


The Scars We Share

by chibimono



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Body Horror, Canon Compliant, Gabriel consumes people, M/M, Mild torture, Minor Injuries, Monster Reaper | Gabriel Reyes, Starvation, art has body horror and partial nudity, enemy deaths, fic with art, minor loss of agency
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-20
Updated: 2019-07-20
Packaged: 2020-07-08 07:49:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,504
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19866055
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chibimono/pseuds/chibimono
Summary: Gabriel’s left many marks on Jack over the years. The latest runs deeper than skin. If it doesn’t heal, neither of them will.





	The Scars We Share

**Author's Note:**

  * For [airafleeza](https://archiveofourown.org/users/airafleeza/gifts).



> ***Warning!***
> 
> This is not my usual tender fluff and soft romance. Please heed the tags. There will be detailed body horror and angst. The ending is happy, though.  
> \- This fic is canon-compliant, drawing heavily from the comics Old Soldiers and Masquerade and the short story Bastet, with nods to the comic A Better World, Soldier:76's cinematic, and Sombra's ARG. But hopefully it can be read without the knowledge.
> 
> This is for the 2019 R76 Reverse Bang! I’m so happy I could join in on this year’s event and I was so very blessed and deeply honored to have airafleeza’s beautiful art for my inspiration! 
> 
> The art is embedded, but please still [visit her post and give airafleeza all the love she deserves!](https://twitter.com/airafleeza/status/1152621052922609664?s=21)
> 
> I’m so grateful she let me stretch my writing skills and try my hands with a Monster Gabe fic. I’m also very thankful for her talented beta skills and the massive amounts of support she gave me. 
> 
> I’d also like to thank AsheRhyder for always holding my hand while I cry over my fics and being one of the best sounding boards ever as we play endless rounds of Mystery Heroes. And a special shout-out to my cheerleaders Mechformers, Swagreus, Ventiskull, and all my Twitter buddies. I’d have never made it without all of you. <3
> 
> And to all the lovely people who played a part in this year’s RBB: you’re all wonderful and good luck in everything you do!

Jack was very young when he wandered out alone to the woods that edged along the family farm. He was in search of blackberries, his mother liked to say, and ended up in a tangle of poison ivy instead. He doesn’t remember much of the aftermath, just his father’s retelling about all the swelling, the burning itch, and his incessant crying. 

He seriously wonders if it was anything like this angry lesion of necrotic flesh at his lower back, the burning and itching unyielding in its annoyance and only getting worse. His body has yet to heal, won’t until it can reject the festering decay.

_ What have you done, Gabriel? _

“Stop it, Jack. You’re like a child,” Ana says as he discreetly tries reaching back and scratching for some kind of relief. 

Jack groans, turning to glare at his old friend. “When you have a thousand mosquito bites all in one spot, talk to me again.”

“If you’re going to be that much of a baby, there’s still Angela,” Ana smirks.

With a sigh, Jack shakes his head. They don’t have the time to be sidetracked with explanations and reprimands, for the grief to open like a scab pulled from a wound. The less people who know that the two of them are still alive the better. There will be fewer complications in their way as they strive for their goal.

Their goal, which has brought them to Italy. 

Jack’s little hacker friend, Sombra, originally had them investigating the situation with the Vishkar Corporation and their involvement in the ruins of favelas in Rio de Janeiro. Through emails she dug up while Jack bashed heads with Los Muertos, Sombra found a link between Lumerico’s Guillermo Portillo in Dorado and Vishkar’s Sanjay Korpal in Utopaea. According to the sneaky little purple skull, if they could connect the dots, Talon wouldn’t be far behind.

They were trying to contact a local activist and DJ who came under threat for protesting the Vishkar when bodies were found floating in the canals of Venice, shriveled to husks and peppered with the remains of the same necrotic violence ravaging Jack’s back. He felt guilty for abandoning people that needed help in Brazil, but this was the closest lead Jack’s found since falling into the trap in Egypt. 

Ana fought him on it at first; like with Cairo, their effort could be better spent helping in Brazil instead of chasing a ghost in Italy. When Jack made it clear he was willing to leave her behind, that he wasn’t going to waste this chance, she reluctantly gathered her things and followed.

They arrive in Rialto under the cover of night. While Ana secures a safehouse, Jack breaks into the local morgue, looking for evidence. He hopes he’s not too late, that they haven’t disposed of the bodies yet in the thirty-six hours since they’ve been reported. 

Slipping into the hospital and making his way to the basement is easier than he expects. He uses confidence, an old Blackwatch trick, to seem like he belonged. He easily swipes a badge and lab coat and breezes through two security stations without a hitch. A localized EMP handles the surveillance cameras. The morgue is empty when Jack enters, and under the low after hours fluorescent lighting, Jack finds a hastily fashioned quarantine area.

He hacks the closest terminal, cracks into the archives, and loads what information they have on the victims—names, DNA, medical records, known addresses—on a flashdrive. Between Ana’s contacts and his helpful purple skull hacker, he can figure out why Reaper wanted them dead. He pockets it and moves on.

He slips between the hanging plastic with no care for the hazmat warnings. He knows what’s plaguing these bodies, but the medical examiner seems to think it’s some kind of flesh eating disease. Everywhere that Reaper has emerged from the shadows, these mangled husks have been left behind, drained of all life and sustenance. The medical community believes it to be some kind of infectious disease, not knowing about the mercenary behind their deaths. This is the first time, however, that Reaper has left something behind, if the reports are anything to go by. Tiny black specks remained on the bodies. Investigators think it’s the source of the deaths, an infestation that mummifies the bodies by consuming them from the inside out. 

Jack opens one of the refrigerated drawers to inspect the body and sure enough finds small black flecks creeping over the shriveled, paper-thin skin. The same mass of tiny flecks are slowly eating away at his back.

Gabriel really was here. But just how late is Jack in catching up to him?

Jack sighs in frustration and tries closing the drawer, but the flecks move. No longer a crawl, they begin swarming together, swirling like a small tornado of smoke and rising up. Straight for Jack. Two more drawers bang open, wisps of smoke aiming for him. He backs away quickly, panic catching in his throat. 

He turns to run, needing to get distance, but he’s not fast enough. It darts after him, as if drawn to him like a violently strong magnet. They pierce into his back to join the others, like shards of glass being rubbed into his skin. It’s still enough to bring him to his knees, gritting his teeth in a groan as the itching and burning of the unhealed wound flairs hotter, sharper, and deeper. 

_ Gabriel, what have you done? _

There’s no mistaking the commotion coming from the morgue, leaving Jack with little else but to get out of there before someone comes to check out the disturbance. He pulls himself up with the help of a gurney, his skin breaking out in a sweat. He needs to gather and school himself into something nonchalant if he wants to make it out without being questioned.

It’s almost harder than he can manage with the pain, but he can use his pale and clammy complexion to his advantage. He sheds the lab coat and makes his way to the emergency room, swiping some discharge papers from a printer. He’s stopped by a nurse once, but he flashes the documents and tells her in broken Italian that he’s going to the hotel to sleep it off and she lets him go with well wishes. She probably thinks he’s a tourist here for Carnival and partied a little too hard.

He’s three blocks clear from the hospital before he collapses in an alleyway, giving in to the searing ache in his back. He tells himself it will just be a moment, that it will subside like the original shotgun wound did into an endless itch, then he’ll get back on his feet and contact Ana. He’ll contact her in minute…

Jack doesn’t know how long he’s out. He’s propped up against a brick wall, head lolling to the side, as heavy steps slowly work their way into his consciousness. Something kicks at his foot and his eyes lazily blink open.

“Why are you here, Morrison?”

The tone is familiar, a drawled growl of frustration, but the modulated sound of it isn’t. His bleary eyes finally focus on Reaper, standing over him in all his dark leather and Kevlar, a nightmare among the shadows of the alley. Jack fumbles with drawing his pistol, his hand barely steady as he aims it at the dark mass looming before him.

“What, you don’t trust me anymore?” Reaper grits, sounding more like an accusation than a question. 

“I used to, but then you  _ shot _ me!” Jack snapped, ready to return the favor if shotguns formed in those empty claws. 

They don’t appear, not with how Reaper folds his arms over his chest, his head tilting in a way that reads like an eye roll under the bone mask. 

“One of us has to keep up with appearances. Besides, how else was I going to find you again?”

“Find me?” Jack asks, not quite making the connection. Then he feels it, like a thousand needles piercing his lower back and lighting up each and every nerve there. Jack snarls in pain, dropping his pistol to scrabble for any handhold he can find, writhing against the vicious, searing agony. He goes limp and vulnerable as pain leaves him, smoke swirling around him and away, back to its dark, hooded owner. 

Panting and trembling, Jack is sure he can’t defend himself. No attack comes, though, as Reaper crouches down to level with him.

“You’re too close, Jack,” Reaper says in a low hiss. “You need to get away from here.”

“No,” Jack says with as much conviction as he can muster while breathless with pain. “No, I’m not leaving. Not until Talon falls. And you come home with me.”

Reaper laughs, bitter and ugly, and it makes Jack’s heart ache. “Yes, like I’d really get to go home after all I’ve done. I’m a monster, Jack. I’ll rot in prison until I turn to ash.”

“We can take on Talon together—“

“No!” Without Reaper even raising his voice, the force of the word alone is enough to silence Jack. “You still aren’t listening to me. We are here now because you didn’t listen to me. We’re lucky to be alive. You’re a liability, a distraction. So I’m doing this my way. And I won’t let you come between me and my mission!”

Reaper rises from his crouch and takes a few steps back. “Go after Korpal. He should be on his way back to Brazil now. If you can prove the explosion in Rio’s city center was caused by hard-light technology, you can pin it on him. Good luck with  _ that _ .”

Jack knows, behind the mask, Gabriel would be narrowing his eyes, that there would be a small sneer on his lips to go with the sarcasm. From the way Ana told it, there’s not much left of that familiar face underneath. 

“What happened to you, Gabe?” Jack asks. How much of his old partner, his best friend, his heart, is still under there? How far will he have to reach to pull Gabriel back to him?

“Gabriel is dead,” Reaper spits. “Just like Overwatch. And you, if you don't get out of here like I asked.”

Reaper won’t kill him: Jack believes it down to his very bones. He’s had every chance, right here and now, to put Jack out of his misery, but hasn’t even tried. If anything, Reaper is trying to keep him alive.

When the dark looming figure of Reaper turns to walk away, leaving Jack alone in the dark alley, Jack reaches his hand out for him. He’s too far to touch, and with his back turned, he doesn’t see the gesture.  _ No, he can’t just walk away! _ Jack needs to get up, but he’s exhausted.

“Haven’t you heard?” Jack grunts, resting his weight against the brick wall as he tries getting to his knees. “Overwatch is back from the dead. Maybe Gabriel will be, too.”

Stopping, Reaper turns his head just enough to give Jack the profile of his haunting bone mask. “I didn’t think you were that damn naive, Morrison.”

Slowly, Jack gets his legs under him, still using the wall to hold him steady. “No?” he pants, smiling at the small victory of watching Reaper hesitate. “I’ve always had hope for the future. Always so optimistic. You know how I am. So show me. Show me there’s nothing left of Gabriel.”

The growl that rolls through Reaper is low and animalistic, harsh and defensive. He whips around, his body defusing to smoke as his eyes burn like embers of coal. “Get the hell away from me, Morrison, or I’ll  _ make you join the other husks in the morgue! _ ” He churns like a tornado of ash and disappears into the ether. No trace of him lingers.

Leaving Jack alone. So very alone.

He shouldn’t have pushed. He should have listened. He should’ve--well. There were so many things Jack could’ve said, but he knows none of it would’ve broken through to Gabriel. Jack is beginning to think pulling Gabriel back is going to take a reach longer than he can manage.

What have I done, Gabriel?

He can’t give up. As long as his heart beats, as long as Gabriel is out there somewhere, Jack will reach for him. And when he gets him back this time, he’s not letting go again.

The nightlife of the city has long since died down, letting Jack slowly make his way to unimpeded to the location Ana flagged as their safehouse. He stays alert, watching his surroundings, hoping to maybe catch a telltale wisp of smoke around a corner or glowing red eyes in the shadows. The few people he does see are either drunk or mistake his slow, exhausted pace as drunkenness and steer clear. 

As he stumbles up to front stoop of the apartment building, Jack sighs and leans against the door. He’s too drained, mentally and physically, to go any farther. What does he tell Ana? Do they leave like Reaper wants? Or does Jack stay and press his luck? It’s when he hears the birds begin to chirp, those pesky ones that start in the hours just before dawn breaks, that Jack decides to move. People with early morning jobs will be moving about and leaving soon, so it was probably best that Jack get moving as well.

Up three flights of stairs, he finds the apartment and gently knocks an old code against the door. He waits, knowing Ana is looking him over from the feed of the peephole camera, checking that he’s alone and safe. He tries mustering up a smile for her, but it probably just looks like a cringe. 

She opens the door and quickly hustles him inside. “I was beginning to get worried. That took longer than plan—Jack! You’re bleeding!”

“What? Where?” His back is to her, so he can’t see what she does, but he feels her grab a hold of his shirt and yank it up. Her soft sound of disbelief has Jack worried.

“What, Ana?”

“The infection is gone. You’re healing,” she says in awe. “Come look.”

She guides him into the lone bedroom and has him turn his back to the narrow, full-length mirror. He looks over his shoulder at his image and sees dark blood stained on the lower back of his shirt, right where Reaper shot him in Cairo. When he lifts the shirt, all he sees is fresh, pink skin that will eventually become a smooth, silvery scarred patch. No angry red or mottled black at all. The itch is still there from the healing, but doesn’t burn quite as much.

He no longer has Gabriel under his skin anymore, though. Nagging and angry as it was, at least it was a connection. Suddenly realizing it’s gone seems to hurt more than suffering with the necrotic infection. Gabriel’s still pushing him away.

Ana must sense the sad ache growing in him. “He’s here, isn’t he?”

“Gabriel’s here, yeah.”

She puts her arms around him, squeezing him tight. “Then what’s the plan?”

Jack sighs, closes his eyes tight against the memories of another set of arms joining them for a group hug. He lets it go on for a moment, basking in the comfort of still having one best friend. When he pulls back, he fishes the flashdrive from his pocket and hands it over to Ana.

“We find out why Reaper’s in Rialto.”

*****

SEP and Overwatch gave them lives worth living, but only for a while. Only until the give turned to take, like a cosmic balance needed to be restored. All the blood spilt for the good of mankind was tainted, and all deeds of charity became corrupted. The golden hay days were precious memories. Gone are the days that Jack and Gabriel could stand back to back as partners, side by side as friends, and in each other’s arms as love bloomed. Gabriel pushes them deep down and locks them away. He doesn’t deserve them, not with what he’s become.

Like the original Strike Team tore through Omnics in the Crisis, Talon tore through Overwatch. History repeating, Gabriel saw the tactics and cracked the strategy, but no one would listen. He was like a modern day Cassandra, facing down the Greek armies himself.

How appropriate that to save himself, he was the one to let in the Trojan Horse. With SEP’s work degrading his body, he hired the disgraced Dr. O’Deorain to fix the problem. Having her on the inside, in the heart of the darkest part of Overwatch, was exactly what Talon needed to cripple them. 

By the time he saw what he’d done, it had been too late. All he could do was try protecting Jack. His partner, best friend, his heart. When the Blackwatch facility in Rome blew, taking down Gerard, Gabriel knew they wouldn’t stop until they caught Jack in the fire, too. Killing Bartalotti was the first tumble down a long and slippery slope, fracturing the bond Gabriel and Jack shared, marring the recent turn to intimacy they’d started in the past few years. And Gabriel let the fractures spread, turning to fissures, because it was easier that way. Easier to keep Jack at arm’s length, where he was less of a distraction, where what he didn’t know was plausible deniability.

Gabriel set a plan in motion to return the favor and made it his mission to infiltrate Talon right back. In the process, he lost the trust and respect of all the important people in his life. All but one. Jack just wanted to know what he was doing, just wanted the truth Gabe was trying to tell him when their world caught on fire, the building exploding around them and ripping them apart. Gabriel only survived because the nanites administered by O’Deorain rebuilt him, sucking the very life out of anything in the ruins around him until he was as whole as he could be. 

Without Jack, he’s never truly complete.

He’s been sabotaging Talon from the inside as best as he can to satisfy the void, the loss, but every step closer to the core of Talon has become an ugly sacrifice. He’s tried apologizing to Jack’s ghost for the dirty things he’s done in the name of good intentions. He’s more Reaper than Gabriel now, more monster than man, physically and mentally.

It’s now that Jack’s ghost decides to manifest, as a soldier in a 76 jacket gunning for Talon with all the tricks in Blackwatch’s arsenal. Gabriel would be proud, except that the idiot is going to get himself killed again. Not to mention all his carefully laid plans are hanging in the balance now, with Reaper’s respect and trust resting on pulling the trigger and putting down the former strike-commander-turned-vigilante in the name of loyalty.

He chances a shot in the back, going for a symbolic betrayal, to try forcing Jack away in Cairo. He leaves some nanites behind to keep track of him, hoping Jack’s body could heal against them enough that they wouldn’t consume him. He has to leave not long after to perform further favors for Doomfist, but he hears of how Soldier: 76 stays with Bastet in Egypt long enough to terrorize Hakim into screwing up and falling into their hands. He gets a vague idea of what’s going on through the nanites anyway; physical sensations, things like pain, exhaustion, hunger transfer through in a fuzzy, back-of-the-mind transmission. 

O’Deorain asks if he can leave a few nanites behind the next time he kills, curious to see if he can pick up on whatever kind of tests the medical community is doing through his nanites. She’s amused that the news seems to be reporting the consumed corpses are some kind of disease, some plague they haven’t found a source for yet. It’s taxing, keeping control of the nanites at such a distance, and leaves him with a pang of hunger still after he’s fed well. That’s how Gabriel realizes Jack has found his way to Venice, probably with the intent to find him. He can feel the smaller clusters from the dead bodies, hungry for life, being drawn like a magnet to the larger mass nesting in Jack and feeding off of him. 

Jack is too damn close to Talon’s chosen headquarters if he’s in Rialto. Gabriel can’t let Doomfist suspect he’s let Jack and Ana go in Cairo on purpose. If anyone should recognize the two of them here...

Sombra has already passed along Gabriel’s suggested leads for Korpal in Rio de Janeiro, and Gabriel throws the challenge of proving the city center explosion was caused by hard-light in their way. Anything to get them away from here. If anyone can do it, Jack and Ana will, even if they have to dig up someone that knows more about it more than they do. 

Gabriel is watching over Jack after their conversation, making sure he drags himself inside the safehouse, when a message is patched through to Gabriel’s comm.

“Reyes, I have some data that needs further research. Meet me in Oasis at once,” O’Deorain says. 

Of course she does. As much as Gabriel wants to stick around and make sure Jack and Ana get out of town, duty calls. He arranges for a transport to southern Iraq, and within a few hours, a dropship is ready for him.

Just before liftoff, the air beside Gabriel warps with purple static, revealing Sombra. “ _ ¿Qué onda? _ ” she grins impishly, flicking her long purple nails in a wave.

“What are you doing here?” Gabriel grumbles. He had hopes to take this trip solo, giving him the time to think, to figure out how to keep an eye on Jack while keeping him at arm’s length. Those hopes are dashed as the takeoff sequences begin and Sombra is still beside him.

“I’ve always wanted to see Oasis,” she says, tapping a nail against her bottom lip. “Scientific capital of the world. See all the things they can do, watch them push boundaries, that stuff.”

Gabriel gives her a wary look, though she doesn’t see it under the mask. “I didn’t think you were into that.”

She runs her fingers along the cybernetics embedded in her shaved scalp with a flourish. “I’m always interested in the next integration of humankind.”

He sometimes wonders how much she knows of his abilities, how easily she could probably use her tech and make him into a puppet. She makes him leery, but she’s been remarkably useful so far with prying into Talon and keeping tabs on Jack, enough so to keep her around.

He folds his arms over his chest and hunkers down for the flight, trying his best to come across as antisocial as possible. Luckily for him, Sombra doesn’t seem very interested in talking either, instead playing with her holoscreens messages and videos at a low volume. That’s just fine. Gabriel has wounded blue eyes and a voice like gravel to mull over.

Hours later, they touchdown on the airfield outside of the architectural marvel that is Oasis, a glittering jewel in a sea of sand and mountains. Gabriel gets to his feet without preamble and vacates the transport as soon as the door opens. Sombra is hot on his heels, following him to the docks where the boats will take them into the city proper. 

“So what are we doing here, boss?” she asks cheerfully.

“I need to pay a visit to a friend,” he says. He tries not to be too cryptic, hoping not to draw her attention. 

Fortunately for him, she winks and fades from sight with a little smirk. “Have fun with that.”

There’s nothing fun about this. Nothing fun about being reduced to his molecular structure and the nanites holding him together, poked and prodded to see how he’s still alive--if he can really be considered alive.

He used to think he was molded into a weapon by SEP, but he truly believes Talon made him into a monster. O’Deorain has warped the remains of his body into something that just consumes. He dragged himself from the wreckage in Zurich as a cloud of smog, draining the life energy from everything in his path. He’s seen it himself—to this day nothing grows in the ragged mile he crawled before he was found, scooped up in a Petri dish, and regrown into the shape he inhabits. 

She finds ways to manipulate his form, opens a hole in him and discovers something new, or coaxes a different response out of his abilities. It’s painful and degrading, but he either answers to her or falls apart. She’s the only one that knows how to repair him, how to pour him back into the being he is.

When Talon is gone and O’Deorain is locked away to pay for her crimes against humanity, Gabriel will eventually go, too. Burn out to nothing if his nanites fail. As long as Jack survives, as long as he’s safe, Gabriel will be okay with that.

As he steps into her laboratory, three of her assistants go still, eyes wide as they spot him. O’Deorain is in the middle of discussing an analysis on a nearby screen with a fourth assistant, boredly berating him for clumsy data gathering skills. Gabriel stands there, folds his arms over his chest, and starts tapping a claw against his bicep in a slow, measured way that’s more intimidating than impatient. The three looking at him quickly shuffle their datapads and put away items of importance, making sure their work is properly put on pause before excusing themselves. The commotion around her draws O’Deorain’s attention.

“It took you long enough,” she says, dry as the desert air surrounding the city. She brushes off her assistant with an indifferent wave of her hand, deleting his data from the screen with a simple keystroke. The long hours he put into his research shows in the dark circles under his eyes, the paleness of his skin, and the crushed expression on his face. She ignores him as he gathers his things, waiting until he has finally left to snap her fingers.

The laboratory goes into full lockdown, the doors sealing and ventilation systems shutting tight. A red light flashes overhead until the whole containment process is complete--all to keep his nanites from scattering to the wind when Gabriel can’t hold it together. The lights dim momentarily as a filtration system kicks in and then return to normal, the red flash turning off.

Without flourish, Gabriel sheds his leathers and Kevlar, everything down to his bare skin. It all turns to smoke, lingering over his dark, graying flesh as the nanites gather back into his body. He says nothing as he waits for O’Deorain to begin, his arms at his side and head facing forward.

She gives him a once over with her mismatched gaze, not bothering to step away from the screen where she’d been working. “Did you leave nanites behind like I asked?” 

“I did. They hadn’t started any testing, though,” Gabriel said. Not anything that he could tell, at least. 

“Mmn, they’re probably unsure what to test for. Likely considering how to avoid possible exposure, as if it were communicable.” She crossed an arm over her chest to brace her other elbow, allowing her to rest her chin on her fist in thought. “They have no idea what they’re dealing with. They think it’s a flesh consuming bacteria, so that’s understandable. I suppose you were so late in arriving here because of difficulties in retrieving said nanites?”

“The nanites were easy to get. It’s travel that’s time consuming. Vishkar hasn’t perfected long distance teleportation yet. Maybe you should talk to Korpal about that.”

“Perhaps,” she says lazily, straightening up and turning to her screen. “However, Sanjay seems a little preoccupied with Brazil at the moment.” She switches her screen over to a map. There are dots settled over several places: Hakim’s base in Cairo, Volskaya’s plant outside St. Petersburg, Rialto, and a final point over Rio de Janeiro, where Korpal should be now. “Speaking of Brazil, have you been there lately?”

Of all the marks on the map, Rio de Janeiro was the only place he hadn’t been recently. “No, it’s been years,” Gabriel says, trying to recall his last mission that brought him there. It was probably with Blackwatch and O’Deorain was more than likely with him.

“Fascinating…” Her tone is a red flag. He can see her face reflecting on the screen, the slow, sly grin forming in front of the glass monitor. “Considering trace signatures show you there just a few days ago. At the same time you where in Venice. How odd.”

Gabriel’s heart freezes. 

She closes the map and keys in a short series strokes, code scrolling down on her screen. She turns to him, smiling like the devil. “In fact, twenty-four hours ago, there were three separate nanite signatures in Rialto before merging overnight. Do you know how that could be?”

“Well, I have some thoughts,” he says sarcastically, willing his shotguns to form in his grasp. They don’t appear. Damn.

“Funny you should think the person that gave you your nanites doesn’t know more about them than you,” says O’Deorain, cool and sharp. “You didn’t  _ think _ I’d notice a small swarm separating in Cairo? Or piece together that sightings of 76 were reported in Cairo and in Rio de Janeiro in the same timeframe as that secondary swarm was showing in those locations? Really, Reyes. Did you not at all think I’d keep an eye trained on such an  _ asset _ ?”

He tries conjuring his armor, his mask, anything, but the nanites don’t respond. His arms won’t move, his feet won’t carry him away. There’s a disconnect somewhere between his brain and the muscles of his body.  _ How? _

“Don’t look so surprised.” She rolls her eyes with derision. “A failsafe has been programmed in since the beginning. I’ve never needed to use it. Until now, that is.”

No. Gabriel fights against the paralysis, rails at it with all he has. He doesn’t move. A growing panic sets in as O’Deorain steps into his personal space.

“Akande had his suspicions. You’ve been so willing to gun down agents of Overwatch, but you’ve avoided 76 and Shrike for as long as you could. The one time you cross paths, they lived. Even the monkey has survived.  _ Twice. _ That’s not telling at all, Reyes.”

Just at his peripheral, he sees a static shimmer of purple, reminding him of Sombra. He barely catches it as O’Deorain fills his vision, her face uncomfortably close. She gives his chest a teasing poke, right in the center,and over his heart. He shatters. Gabriel howls in pain, roars with rage, but the sound of it, the force of it, is all trapped within the confines of his mind. His mind scatters all over the floor, tumbling into millions of pieces. He is reduced to just his nanites, falling into a smoking heap. The world around him becomes a dark kaleidoscope, a haunted house of mirrors. O’Deorain’s laughter echoes around him. 

“Don’t worry, I won’t kill you. Akande seems to think you’d make a much better weapon.”

He’s swept up into a canister, locked up and sat on a shelf. The dark haze of the nanites’ smoke keeps him in cold endless shadows. Pressure builds and mashes him to the container’s bottom unless it’s vented off. Sounds only penetrate with a muffled, far-off quality. Time just doesn’t exist anymore.

He doesn’t know how long it is until it hits him, but when the hunger does arrive, it’s all he knows. It burns and aches and feels like a crawling, clawing beast carving out his core. It rips at him like a constant rage. If he still had a body, it would leave him weak and bleeding, muscle and bone disintegrating in haphazard patches under its onslaught. He screams with the agony of starvation. Knows no reprieve from it. He wants it all to end.

He’s unceremoniously dumped from his container like someone slapping ketchup from a bottle. The light of the room is hot and blinding, and he’s being prodded mercilessly. Electricity lights him up and he burns with it, searing from the inside out as he’s reshaped into a human form. He would weep from the searing pain, the feeling like he’s being dissolved alive in acid, worse than Zurich ever was, but he still has no control. He just lays there, curled up in a fetal position and drooling. 

“I suppose you should be fed,” he hears O’Deorain say from a speaker overhead. “Can’t have you waste away completely. Not after all the work I’ve put into you. Now, be a dear and cull Vialli’s useless hires.”

There’s a buzz, like a prison cell unlocking, and five men dressed in Talon grunt uniforms push their way in. They’re armed, guns at the ready like they’re going in for a raid. Adrenaline pumping, a tinge of fear coloring their sweat. They train their weapons on him and wait.

Gabriel is so hungry. If only he could move. He’d claw at his own face just to ease the pain of starvation. His core rumbles with it and he  _ just wants a taste, please, just a sip _ . He whines, but it’s not just in his mind. It comes from his throat. After a pause, so does a laugh. His looks at his fingers and he asks them to uncurl. He chuckles darkly in relief. Asks them to flatten his palms against the floor. He snorts as he giggles. He asks them to form claws. His cackle is fiendish. He rakes at the cement floor of the cell. He laughs again, almost hysterical with it now.

He finally has his body under his own control again. Freedom makes him lightheaded, but the hunger grounds him, draws his attention with desperation. He wills himself into dark, heavy smoke and roars with wild glee. Like the useless foot soldiers they are, the men fire at him, dispersing his vapors further, but not harming him at all. 

He darts to the nearest man and coils around him, wraps him up in darkness and swallows him whole. Gabriel tastes his heart and bones, drinks from his muscles and brain, chews on his heart. He feasts until only the mummified remains are left. A petrified scream that will never be voiced is left the man’s face.

The stench of fear thickens as the other four realize what is happening, backing against the walls and scrabbling for the sealed door behind them. They’re yelling and cursing as Gabriel rises like the Grim Reaper from the body of their dead comrade. 

“You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” he mocks, before picking another and tearing into him with abandon.

He consumes them one by one, drawing every bit of life force he can possibly steal. He sucks them dry to their very marrow, and still he wants more. He claws at the door and tries prying it open, the strength of his desperation bending and warping the metal.

“That’s enough for today,” O’Deorain says through the speakers.

No. He’s no longer a man, once again reduced to toxic nanite sludge. He’s shoved back into his container, back into his cold darkness. Dread takes hold of Gabriel as he worries this is all he will have, this is all he will ever be. A weapon to devour the enemy, to chew through the field and all opposition. Only to be penned and starved, until he is needed again. He fears who he’ll be released against. Innocents? Jack? 

_ Please, anyone but Jack. _

He fears, but only until the hunger returns and it’s all he ever knows.

*****

Jack hasn’t slept in a bed in years. He’s slept at his desk, on transports, on sofas. He’s found rest on cots, in sleeping bags, leaning against walls or trees. He’s caught some shut-eye on the bare ground with a rock for a pillow.

He vividly remembers the last time he woke up in a bed, cocooned in warm blankets with the sun peeking through the window. The space beside him had gone cold long ago when Gabriel woke early for a trip to Rome, but the sheets and the pillow still held his scent. The series of events that followed—an explosion at Rome’s Blackwatch base, the execution of Antonio Bartalotti, the public reveal of Blackwatch—forced them apart professionally, publicly, and romantically. As things escalated between Overwatch and Talon, Gabriel tried to push for infiltration against their enemy. They never had a chance to share a bed again.

When Jack wakes in a bed, feeling better than he has in a while, he thinks maybe the past few years have just been a nightmare. But the linens are fresh. No trace of Gabriel lingers. 

He chokes on the heartache. He misses Gabriel down to his very bones, more so now that he’s seen Gabriel is alive for himself. Or, as alive as he can be under that mask. Knowing that Gabriel is here in Venice and turned Jack away, that they’re so near to each other but so far, hurts.

Yes, Jack wants to burn Talon down to the ground and salt its ashes, but more than anything, he wants Gabriel back. He’s grateful for Ana, to have their friendship again as if nothing’s changed. She’s not Gabriel, though. As much as he loves her, she’s a friend and a sister. 

He’s an old soldier that will likely never rest until he’s dead, but if Jack had a home, he’d bring Gabriel back with him to it. Gabriel was his heart. His partner in crime. His most important person. The one thing he could have for himself when the world rested on his shoulders, until the world took Gabriel from him, too. 

The walls collapsed on them in Zurich as they argued, and Jack survived believing he’d never get to tell Gabriel he was sorry or remind him he was loved one more time. He feared Gabriel died thinking Jack hated him, which was so far from the truth. Angry, yes. Afraid for him, undoubtedly. But Jack could never hate Gabriel. 

Just the few moments with Reaper in the alley made Jack felt a little bit whole again. Bickering isn’t new for them, and neither is sharing pain. Gabriel is alive under that mask. And he still cares, if telling Jack to get the hell out of Italy means anything. 

Not that Jack’s going to go. Not without Gabriel. They always were better together.

_ What am I getting into now, Gabriel? _

Figuring out just why Reaper is in Rialto is a very complicated puzzle, with their only starting pieces being the men in the morgue with criminal records a mile long.

“The very obvious reason is for Carnival,” Ana says with a smirk, sipping her tea.

Jack huffs a laugh. “How many costume changes you think he brought with him?”

“How many do you think he’d have time to make? Talon must keep him busy.” Ana sobers, putting her teacup down to pick up her tablet. “Jack, we laugh, but I worry. We think of him as Gabriel, but-- _ what if? _ What if that’s not the man we remember anymore?”

Jack paces around the tiny galley kitchen of their small safehouse apartment. It’s something he’s worried about since he recognized that familiar body masked in bone and leather. Deep in his heart, he knows it’s his Gabriel, but he doesn’t exactly know how to prove it.

“It’s him, I know it. He wouldn’t hurt me.”

Ana’s flat stare is inscrutable. “He shot you in the back, Jack.”

“He wouldn’t kill me!” Jack insists. “He’s had every chance. Ana, I know him. Trust me. It’s our Gabe.”

She sighs and rolls her eye, waving a placating hand. “Fine, fine. He’s your Gabriel. But knowing that, where do we go from here?”

Jack tips his head in thought. “I guess we dig.”

Over the next week, they try finding all the common denominators between the dead husks Reaper left behind. Using the DNA from their medical records for identification, Ana is able to pull up some arrest reports and court documents available for public record.

Assault and battery charges, racketeering, armed robbery; these guys were no angels. Jack is a little proud that, even as Reaper, Gabriel goes for the scumbags with no mercy. A few of the dead are Italian, local muscle that have spent as much of their life in jail as they lived outside of it. One was from the Russian mob. Another still was a wanted hitman from Austria, one Gérard Lacroix was after before transferring from Interpol to Blackwatch as an analyst.

Thanks to a few backdoor channels graciously left open by his notorious source Sombra, Jack was able to dig into the financials of the dead men, finding they were all receiving unspecified large sum payments from a shell corporation on the regular. It takes another week to trace the money, but they are led to an accounting firm that’s been under multiple investigations for laundering. What draws Ana and Jack’s attention the most is the investigation involving transactions with casinos in Monaco that belong to Maximilien and with the Italian entrepreneur Vialli—

A little purple skull pops up on the corner of Jack’s tablet screen. He doesn’t wait for it to ring, letting the call automatically connect. His friend starts talking the instant she’s put through. “ _ Yeah, Vialli is a dead end. Mostly because he’s dead now. You didn’t like my leads on Sanjay Korpal? _ ”

Ana frowns, unfamiliar with the voice behind their helpful shadow. Jack wishes he could meet Sombra, wishes he could be on her end of the line for once and know all that she does. She sits backseat to the massive scale chess game Talon is waging, and every secret she can share, no matter how small or how painful, is a welcome advantage.

“Liked them well enough, but I got caught up in a little bit of a distraction,” Jack says to his tablet. 

“ _ Like a tall, full-bodied goth with a penchant for littering kind of distraction? _ ”

Jack nods, not entirely sure she can’t see him even though he doesn’t have the camera engaged. “Yeah, maybe. You know why he’s in Rialto?”

“ _ I know why he  _ was _ in Rialto, buuuut he’s not there anymore. _ ”

Ana leans towards Jack from her chairlike she can stop him from running off after Gabriel right that moment.

“A mission?” Jack asks, hoping maybe Sombra can divulge a little something, a peek of some kind into the things Talon actually asks of Reaper.

“ _ No, worse, _ ” Sombra says, her voice going quiet. “ _ Punishment. They know about you, 76. But when they’re done with him,  _ he _ might not. _ ”

Blood running cold, Jack’s breath stutters. Gabriel is in trouble. Somehow they found out Gabriel tried to warn him away. Now he was paying the price for it.

_ Gabriel, what have you gotten into now? _

“Where?” Jack demands.

Ana reaches out and grabs his wrist. “This could be a trap, Jack,” she says, low and harsh. “How do you even know you can trust her?”

“ _ Whether or not you trust me is the least of my problems, _ ” Sombra shoots back in disgust. “ _ Anyway, he’s in Oasis. Does the name Moira O’Deorain ring any bells? The crazy doc knows how to use him against himself. _ ”

Cursing, Jack rubs a hand over his face. How much more of Gabriel could that woman take apart? Her lack of ethics and empathy, as well as her need to selfishly manipulate situations for her own preferred outcome, have been a thorn in Jack’s side since O’Deorain was first a member of Overwatch. Jack knew there had to be a reason Gabriel recruited her for Blackwatch--he just wished Gabriel would have stopped being so stubborn and told him why.

Jack grits his teeth and tries to quell the anger and helplessness that fills him. He needs to be rational. “Okay, there anything I need to know? What am I up against here?” 

With a sigh, Ana deflates, resignation written across her face. “What are we going up against?”

Putting his free hand over the one Ana still has around his wrist, Jack gives it a squeeze of thanks. He’s so grateful for Ana, so grateful for all she’s put up with between Gabriel and him.

“ _ Oasis has its own private security to keep the undesirables out, but the Ministry of Genetics seems to have a small army of Talon guard dogs all to herself. The Council won’t be too happy with you taking off with one of their favorite murder toys, _ ” Sombra says, and Jack can hear the smirk in her voice.

“I really don’t care how Talon feels. I’m done with them ripping us apart.” Jack leans on the kitchen counter like a war table, hands braced on either side of the tablet as he looks over it. “They’ve cornered and twisted a good man, and it’s time I’ve brought him home. They won’t be torturing him anymore, not as long as I’m alive and can do something about it.”

Sombra’s laughter is enthusiastic and buoying. “ _ So this is what it was like in Overwatch! I got chills! Go get your boy, old man Strike-Commander! _ ” The little purple skull disappears as she disconnects.

“Okay, so what’s the plan?” Ana asks, already sounding tired.

Jack shrugs. “We go in and get Gabe. Drag him out by the scruff of the neck if we have to.” He can only hope it will be so simple.

“Ah, yes,” her voice is deadpan, “Gabriel was the tactician. How could I forget.”

The soonest and fastest transport they can secure is an expensive, first-class, public flight. It’ll hurt their budget for a while unless they can get their hands onto a paying mission. Jack laughs and says that Gabriel is worth every penny. They pose as an elderly couple on vacation, Jack sporting a Hawaiian shirt and socks with his sandals, while Ana finds a blue number with a floppy straw hat and scarf. 

They go over the layout of Oasis on their tablets, locating the Ministry of Genetics on the university grounds. To get there, they’ll have to take a boat over the artificial lake the city was built on, then make their way through the city central. While getting in is going to be tricky, getting out is going to be worse. If the city goes on alert at anytime, the docks will close and leave them trapped. 

“You work on securing Gabriel, I’ll find us a way out,” Ana reassures him. 

They keep up the vacation ploy as they check into a hotel in the city center. Jack is a little surprised no one has recognized them yet, but he’s grateful for it. It’s giving them time to scout around the university for the easiest way in. The closer they get to the Ministry of Genetics, the more Talon soldiers they see. They’re active in their sentry duties, sweeping the areas often and thoroughly. Jack and Ana split. Each take up one of the libraries for public use on either side of the genetics department, using the ruse of reading research to time the movements of the grunts.

Jack doesn’t like recon. The waiting is excruciating when he knows time is of the essence, but he also knows that the lack of recon can get them killed. So he waits and watches and lets Ana work things out with her contacts. He tries not to think of Gabriel, bloody and broken, dissected on lab table, with the light fading from his eyes. Jack supposes his imagination wouldn’t be so vivid if he hadn’t actually seen it decades before in SEP. 

The fourth night there, they decide to make their move. The nightlife around Oasis is just as busy as daylight, with the night owls putting in their research hours, enjoying meals, and shopping like anyone else. Jack and Ana don dark tactical gear and stick to the shadows, with Ana covering Jack through the city center. Once they make it to the doors of the university, Ana breaks away to meet her contact as Jack proceeds alone. 

The corridors are eerily silent, even at such a late hour. Where there should be researchers hard at work, the laboratories and lecture halls are all locked tight. Jack moves as swiftly as he can, pistol at the ready if a foot soldier should cross his path. As he reaches the Ministry of Genetics, he notices the absence of grunts on sentry duty. His gut tells him trouble is up ahead. He should probably check in with Ana—

“ _ Welcome, Strike-Commander. _ ” The voice coming from the speakers overhead is familiar and sets a fire in Jack’s blood. “ _ Oasis’ preventive surveillance technology keeps a close watch on everything that happens in this city. I’ve been expecting you. _ ”

“Then you know what I’m here for, O’Deorain. Cut to the chase.”

“ _ Oh, if you want Reyes, you can have him. _ ”

The main laboratory’s doors open and six Talon soldiers step through, carrying a large thermos-like canister labeled with hazmat warnings. Jack doesn’t need to see their faces through their helmets to read their fear. At least one man is shaking so bad he can barely hold his end. Neither of them want to touch the canister and they throw it down at their feet as soon as they’ve cleared the threshold. 

In a panic, two try falling back through the lab doors, but they slam shut, the lock beside the door scrolling a warning of containment protocols in effect in bright red letters. Another of their comrades falls to his knees and begins to pray. The one trembling like a leaf is openly crying, banging on the doors to be let in. The man most resigned to his fate steps forward and pops the latches for the lid and gives the side of it a swift kick, as if to jar the contents inside. 

Dark, inky smoke trickles from the opening, hesitant as a skittish kitten. It defuses and spreads into a large mist, almost human in shape. Jack watches in morbid fascination as it takes the form of oily black bones and stringy sinew. The organs are half-assembled and show through the patchy, deathly grey skin and muscle. Solid black eyes and hungry mouths form all over the body as the dark wisps vent off of it— _ him _ .

It’s a man.  _ It’s Gabriel _ .

“ _ You just have to feed him, _ ” O’Deorain stipulates, her tone viciously smug. 

One of the soldiers pulls off his helmet to retch on the floor. The movement draws Gabriel’s attention, his head snapping toward the soldier. Body falling into smoke again, he swarms forward like a vaporous snake, striking and coiling around the grunt. The cloudy darkness swallows the soldier, consumes him, When there is no life, he finally lets the body go.

The brave one that freed Gabriel pulls a pistol and starts shooting at him, the bullets passing easily through Gabriel’s smoggy form and into the mummified corpse. Gabriel rises like a black tide and crashes into the soldier with demonic laughter, sucks him up in a whirlpool of smoke and plunders him.

Gabriel goes through the other four just as fast, just as violent, stripping the souls from their bodies. The more he consumes from them, the more solid and tangible he seems. He’s still covered in toothy mouths and black eyes, his flesh decaying down to the hollows of his body in some places, but he’s more corporeal nightmare than misty wraith when his human body forms.

“Gabe?” The name slips from Jack’s mouth, a silent plea that somewhere inside that hungry swarm, he will be recognized. If Gabriel were to eat him, Jack knows he deserves it. Of all the ways to die, he would rather Gabriel be the one to do it, especially if feeding from Jack could help him survive just a little longer.

Whirling around, Gabriel’s body turns to smog, ready to strike. The red glow of his two natural eyes widen as they spot Jack, standing just at the opening of the corridor.

“No, you shouldn’t be here!” Gabriel growls, gathering his smoke to him like a protective cocoon.

When Jack steps forward, reaching for him, Gabriel moves back. “I came here for you.”

“You’ve came! You’ve seen what I’ve become!” he hisses, his oily cloud coiling tighter around him as Jack makes a slow, cautious approach. “Now leave!”

“I won’t let them use you as a weapon—“

“SEP made me into a weapon!” Gabriel swells in size to intimidate, as if to think that could ever make Jack back down. “I am a  _ monster _ , just like Talon wanted!”

“No!” Jack shouts, pace quickening. He refuses to believe that Gabriel will accept this, what Talon has forced him to become. “You aren’t a monster!”

“I don’t control this! I devour everything in my path!” Gabriel roars, his eyes flaring with fire. “I’ll hurt you, Jack!” 

Jack smirks, huffing a laugh. “That’s fine! I heal!” 

He leaps for Gabriel, leaving him no room to escape. The surprise written across Gabriel’s smoky face is as funny as it is heartbreaking. Jack will have to make sure Gabriel never has a reason to doubt his heart again.

Jack burns when he touches Gabriel, the skin of his hands are eaten away where they cup Gabriel’s misty face, his face sears where he presses his lips to Gabriel’s. He tastes blood, feels raw, but it won’t stop him from kissing his Gabriel. Under his fingers, Jack can feel him become solid,  _ feel real _ . The pain eases and Jack is itchy with the sensation of healing. 

“I’m sorry, Gabriel,” Jack whispers, leaning their foreheads together. “I never meant for things to go this way.”

Tentative hands touch Jack’s hips. “You never listen. I just don’t want to see you hurt,” Gabriel says with a shaky breath.

“I don’t want you hurting, either. Gabe, you are lov—“

Gabriel freezes, the light fading from his red eyes. The other eyes scattered across his skin fall shut as the extra mouths close and fade away on his skin.

Fear seizes Jack’s heart. “ _ Gabe? _ ” 

The laboratory doors slide open and O’Deorain appears. “I have to do everything myself,” she snaps, aiming her biotic grasp in their direction. 

Jack goes on defense, dropping a biotic field to protect them as he pulls out his pistol, moving to stand between O’Deorain and a vulnerable Gabriel. A shimmer of violet static appears over O’Deorain’s shoulder. Jack holds his fire, worried what missing the scientist and hitting the static could cause. 

“Didn’t see that coming!” 

Jack knows that voice.  _ Sombra. _

A woman in flashy purple fades into view, tapping her fingers against the air. O’Deorain curses when she is unable to hurl a biotic orb and stumbles when she can’t fade to dodge the barrage from her machine pistol. Jack fires too, driving O’Deorain back into her lab.

Dashing forward, the woman slaps a device on Gabriel’s shoulder. “This will disable the failsafe command for a little while, long enough to get you out of here.”

Gabriel sags weakly against Jack, turning weightless as he fades mostly to vapor. Jack holds him close as he recovers, pressing a kiss to his smoky temple with his still tender lips. 

She pushes at them. “Go, we don’t have much time!”

_ What have we gotten into, Gabriel? _

Getting Gabriel’s arm around his shoulder, Jack tries supporting them as he takes off at a run. Gabriel manages to summon up some of his armor as he slowly regains his autonomy again, forming a shotgun in his free hand to help fight. Sombra watches their back as an alert covers the campus grounds., the lights in the university turning red.

Talon soldiers come running, but are taken out one by one as the three of them charge through the building. Once they hit the open grounds outside, they get help from Ana as she snipes from a distance. By then, Gabriel is in full Reaper attire, standing on his own and gunning down all in their path.

They reach the edge of the city. There, Ana joins them. Her contact, a friend they helped in Cairo, is ready with a small speedboat and a sandcrawler for a getaway once they reach the banks of the lake. 

“This is the stupidest thing I think you’ve ever planned,” Gabriel growls as he shadowsteps into the boat.

“I couldn’t let them hurt you,” grunts Jack as he jumps down onto the boat, causing it to rock. It tips Gabriel into his arms. “I can't bring you home to help me take down Talon if you’re dead.”

Gabriel pushes out of his arms and straightens his leather coat. “I’m not some damsel that needs your help.”

“No, but you not asking for help is how we got here. You went to O’Deorain before and never said a word. I didn’t even know you were suffering! You didn’t take SEP as hard as I did. I never expected the effects to haunt you after.”

“A little help, boys?” Ana calls. “We’ve got incoming!” 

They both shut their mouths and help Ana down to join them. Sombra tosses her translocator onto the boat and flickers to it from the elevated ground. Ana’s friend pulls the craft away from the city as Talon soldiers converge on their location, their boat speeding off under a hail of fire.

“All of this was just because Jack was so worried about you, Gabriel!” Ana shouts over the wind. “You know he does stupid things without you to be his impulse control!”

Gabriel turns to look at him, his expression hidden behind Reaper’s mask. “How do you  _ still function _ after all these years?!”

Jack laughs. He has to, or he will cry, the familiar banter hitting so close to home. “Old habits, I guess!” he shouts, voice horse with emotion.

Once they make it to shore, they have a troop of Talon soldiers waiting for them at the sandcrawler. Jack and Gabriel fall into step like they’ve never separated, fighting back to back and forcing their way through. Gabriel devours the life out of at least two of the grunts. 

They get the sandcrawler and move as soon as possible, knowing they’ll have to switch transports eventually to avoid being followed.

“So what‘s the plan now?” Sombra asks.

“Endgame is to see Talon destroyed. How we get there, I haven’t figured it out yet,” Jack admits.

Ana eyes Jack. “He never thought that far ahead.”

“He never has,” Gabriel says on a frustrated sigh. “That always ended up as my job. Now, thanks to Jack, all the plans I’ve made have to be scrapped.”

“At least you’ve got some options. There’s always the new Overwatch,” Sombra says, nonchalantly looking over her nails.

“And  _ you _ ,” Gabriel points, “what about you? You’ve showed your hand. Burned your bridge. You  _ really _ think Talon’s going to let you back in again?”

Sombra smirks, her face impish and young, belying all the knowledge hidden behind those savvy eyes. “I’ve made my share of powerful allies and I have more than enough insight into Talon’s plans to detail most of their endeavors for a while. I’m not worried about going back.”

Frowning, Ana hums in thought. “I think it’s best if we lay low for a little while. Our resources took a hit. We should probably take stock of what we assets we have and regroup.”

“If you don’t mind me tagging along for a little bit, I’d like to see if I can block Moira’s failsafe on Reaper,” Sombra says as she projects a few screens in midair. “Maybe find someone you can trust if you need a patch job or something.”

“What’s the catch?” Gabriel asks, his tone dubious from under the mask. 

“It wouldn’t be anything dumb, like your first born—who is doing well, by the way. Your grandbaby is adorable,” she smiles smugly, flexing her well of knowledge like a threat. “All I really want is to be in on Talon’s downfall. I’m looking forward to the climb upward in the vacuum of power afterward. Information sells, if you know what I mean?”

Ana is poised to disagree, but Jack jumps in before she can get a word in. “Deal.”

“Jack, you can’t—“ Gabriel begins to protest, but Jack has a goal they can aim for.

“Talon is the mission. We do whatever it takes to bring them down. So, keeping Gabe alive is a priority. And keeping Sombra on as an asset is a bonus. From here, I’m sure we can figure out something.”

Gabriel repeats, resigned, “We’ll figure out something.” He sighs and ducks into the cargo hold, away from the tiny living area. 

Ignoring Ana’s pointed expression that they should talk this over further, Jack follows Gabriel through the stacks of crates and behind a hanging cargo net. “We always do. We’re better when we’re together.”

“Especially when you listen for a change,” Gabriel accuses. He has to take a quick step back, Jack too close in his personal space. 

“I promise I’ll listen if you promise to talk to me when something is troubling you.”

Gabriel lets the bone mask fade away, revealing his red eyes and patchy grey face. An extra eye blinks from over his left cheekbone. He narrows all three, searching Jack’s face. “Fine,” he grits out with an exhale of resignation.

Jack cups his face, drawing Gabriel in for a kiss, only to be pushed back. “You  _ shouldn’t _ ,” Gabriel says, turning away from him. “I could hurt you. I don’t know how you can even look at me, Jack.” 

“You’re still my Gabriel. That’s all that matters to me,” Jack whispers, crowding behind Gabriel. He leaves a kiss on his shoulder, where he thought he saw a mouth on Gabriel’s bare skin earlier. “If you let me, I’d make out with all those mouths you have.”

Gabriel hesitates a moment before turning to face Jack again, his expression soft and sad. “You’re still as hopeless as ever.” He rubs a thumb over the tender skin of Jack’s lips, which have fully healed now. “I can’t promise that I won’t suck the life out of you—“

“In more ways than one?” Jack grins.

The glare Gabriel gives him is sharp. “In the  _ worst _ way possible. I need to--I need to  _ feed _ . The starving is terrible. If we can’t find a way—“

“‘We will,” Jack promises, reaching for Gabriel and drawing him in. At first Gabriel hesitates, but easily gives in. It’s been too long for both of them. “Whatever it takes. No matter what happens, this time I won’t let you go.”

**Author's Note:**

> I'm @chibimonoakuno on Twitter. I write fic threads and retweet R76 smut. :D


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